Friday and Saturday 4-5 September
Because our marina is in the back end of nowhere we are heading for the big city to see the capital Funchal and will stay overnight in a hotel.
We popped into the Cathedral which was pretty much the first big project after the claiming of the island for the Portuguese in 1418, and was completed in 1514.
Our taxi driver told us to go up on the cable car, so we did. It goes up 560m to the Monte above Funchal.
We went to the Monte Palace Tropical Garden. Originally the grounds of the British Consul, Charles Murray, this enormous estate became the Monte Palace hotel. A century later, in 1987, José Bernado had the vision and philanthropy to transform the gardens into the tropical delight it is today.
There’s a vast mineral collection.
And lovely views over the town of Funchal.
The garden is divided into various themes,
There are flamingos
And tiled panels telling the history of Portugal.
It was cloudy at first but then the sun came out.
Back in Funchal we enjoyed the rooftop pool at the hotel
The town is smart with typical Portuguese paving
The shops here sell some interesting things.
Who knew you get your religious statues in the kitchen shop?
There’s a lovely community feel here, just like the rest of the Iberian peninsular, and we enjoyed the street singing as much as they were obviously enjoying themselves.
Music is such a unifier, everyone was smiling and loving the sing along, even if they didn’t know the words. We need more music in schools, not such formal music lessons either – everyone should be encouraged to sing or play together, it is so good for community cohesion and joy.
On Saturday we walked through the market.
Then we headed up the hill again on the eggs and took another one down to the Botanical garden that has collections of plants from around the world.
They also have a taxidermy collection.
And fossils from the lime stone deposits that were formed 7 million years ago when the island was first pushed up as a shallow sea by volcanic action.
This limestone has been used for mortar and building construction but is now mostly protected as a geological phenomenon.
We decided to come back down the hill in a basket sledge.
This is the most touristy thing here and the queue was pretty long. These wicker baskets used to be a common form of transportation for goods and for gentle folk in Madeira – uphill too apparently which is hard to imagine, it’s very steep!
It was well worth the queue as it was completely hilarious. You miss parked cars by a whisker and seem to be about to hit a wall or go into the deep gutters on either side of the narrow winding roads at a pretty breakneck speed.
Our drivers have rubber shoes and seem pretty relaxed about going down sideways. We could smell the wooden runners heating up with friction but we didn’t see any flames!
They stop after 2km and I think they used to go all the way as we walked on down equally steep streets into town. It probably took too long to get the Carreiros and their baskets back up the hill.
We will have a quiet day tomorrow and set off for Lanzarote crack of dawn on the 7th. I can’t believe that will be our final destination! (For now)